Isaias strengthens to 100 mph with landfall expected late Friday or early Saturday on the northern Gulf Coast; Trump says no Iran strikes before the midterms
Evening: Houthi missile debris damages a Riyadh kindergarten; a Russian strike darkens much of Kyiv; Trump presents the National Medals of Science; Vance suspends Microsoft from green card sponsorship; Maduro and Flores charged with torturing Americans; the Supreme Court pauses an FCC deadline.
Hurricane Hunters found Isaias had top winds near 100 mph at 4 p.m. CT Thursday, about 325 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and the National Hurricane Center expects more strengthening through early Friday and a landfall on the northern Gulf Coast late Friday or early Saturday. A Hurricane Warning covers Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay/Gulf County line in Florida, and a Storm Surge Warning runs from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Suwannee River, with 5 to 7 feet of surge possible from Ocean Springs to Indian Pass and in Mobile Bay; the center forecasts 4 to 8 inches of rain, locally up to 15, across southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and Big Bend and southwest Georgia. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who declared a state of emergency for 40 counties, ordered all tourists and visitors in Baldwin County south of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, including Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, and on Dauphin Island to evacuate immediately, and closed state offices in nine counties from noon Friday.
President Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday that the United States “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd,” adding that the naval blockade “will remain in full force and effect” and that his team has been having “productive discussions” with Iran, AP and CBS News reported. The post followed reports that the White House had asked the Pentagon to prepare strike options; Brent crude, up about 4% to $105 a barrel before the post, fell to $103 afterward, CBS reported. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is reviewing the U.S. response to its proposal and expects to reply within a few days, and the Treasury Department sanctioned 17 more vessels it called the remnants of Iran’s shadow fleet.
Saudi Arabia’s civil defense agency said a kindergarten and a medical complex in Riyadh were damaged Thursday by debris from a missile interception, after the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted two Houthi ballistic missiles fired toward the capital, CBS News and AFP reported. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree claimed a ballistic missile hit King Khalid International Airport, which would be the fourth attack on the airport this week, and warned workers at all Saudi oil facilities to stay away. The U.S. Embassy told Americans to exercise heightened vigilance at the Riyadh airport and now requires U.S. government officials to get special authorization to travel through it.
A Russian attack on “one of the energy facilities important for the city of Kyiv” caused power outages in most neighborhoods of the capital on Thursday, Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said, shutting down metro trains and escalators and leaving many residents without running water, the Kyiv Independent reported. As of 12:30 a.m. local time Friday, the left bank of the Dnipro was still without power, and Ukrenergo said it will limit electricity use in some regions on Oct. 9. Russian drone strikes earlier Thursday killed four people and injured at least 19 in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
At the White House’s Science: A New Golden Age Summit at the U.S. Institute of Peace on Thursday, President Trump presented the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Michael Dell and Satya Nadella, the White House said. Trump called Musk “our modern-day Thomas Edison,” The Hill and NBC News reported. NBC said the summit also featured a pledge of about $2.4 billion in AI computing credits and scientific tools from leading AI companies for federal science work, and a NASA-Energy Department partnership on nuclear technology for space exploration announced by Jared Isaacman and Chris Wright.
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the Labor Department is indefinitely suspending Microsoft from its PERM program, which companies use to seek permanent residency for foreign workers hired on H-1B visas, along with Adobe and several IT outsourcing firms, after an investigation by the anti-fraud task force he chairs, CNN and AP reported. Vance said Microsoft laid off about 6,000 American workers last year while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards; Microsoft said 80% of its roughly 6,000 H-1B applications last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of existing employees and that it pays H-1B workers the same as others doing comparable work. Vance also named nine universities, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and MIT, for investigation over their use of J-1 visas.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed a superseding indictment Thursday charging former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, with conspiracy to commit torture, accusing them of overseeing a system of repression that tortured detainees, including more than a dozen U.S. citizens, with “electric shock, asphyxiation, rape” and other abuse, CBS News and Fox News reported. The charge carries up to life in prison if any torture resulted in death and up to 20 years if not, Fox reported. At a hearing the same day, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied Flores’s request for release to home confinement over a heart condition; the couple have pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges, and trial is set for June 2027.
The Supreme Court on Thursday paused, for now, a 2-1 order by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that gave the Federal Communications Commission until noon Friday to decide Democratic candidates’ challenge to its policy extending the lowest broadcast ad rates to party ads coordinated with candidates, USA Today reported. Solicitor General D. John Sauer called the appeals court’s order “a flagrant abuse” of the writ of mandamus in the government’s application, and Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay and asked the challengers to respond by Saturday, Oct. 10, Law&Crime and USA Today reported. In September the Court had also sided with the administration in the same dispute.
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